Legal P2P growing 10 times faster than illegal P2P?

The music industry, movie industry, game industry and just about any other that can have content distributed online wants nothing more than for the world to believe peer to peer file sharing is a devil that leads to rampant piracy. ISPs rail against it, companies block it, and lawsuits are filed against companies and individuals who dare host or use file sharing software.

And yet, despite all the efforts against it, recent studies not only project a massive 400% increase in P2P traffic over the next five years, but indicate that legal use of P2P is growing at a rate 10 times faster than illegal use. While this information won't entirely placate the ISPs that seek to block its use (like Comcast has in the past), it surely is a huge blow to those who point the finger at P2P as the biggest pirating tool in the world.

Obviously that sort of growth can't continue. At the very least, perhaps, it can help change the perception that P2P is a tool of piracy, and instead endorse it for the numerous benefits it can bring. That could lead to more and more ISPs recognizing they must adapt to P2P traffic, rather than opposing it or trying to squelch it. The next five years will prove to be very interesting for P2P technology as more legal content becomes available.